


'Til the Wind Carried Me

by ladyofrosefire



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Backstory, Campaign 02 (Critical Role), Character Study, Gen, Pre-Stream (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 12:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: "We both kinda found our voice together. I was very scared, and he wasn't talking, and together we kinda helped each other learn to, you know, have fun again."A quick look at Molly after he arrived at the carnivalGeneral warnings for the creepiness that is the Hunter's Bane and a mess of trauma and illness that went with it.





	'Til the Wind Carried Me

_One winter day, an albatross blew into the Fletching and Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities._

 

“I don’t know what to do with him,” Bo explained, spreading his hands in a helpless shrug.

Gustav rubbed a hand over his eyes and gave a long sigh. “Well, we can’t throw him back out into the snow.

Orna huffed. “How about you two let me stop him bleeding out, first. Then you can decide ‘what to do with him’.”

They did not go silent after that, but the chatter gained focus. With Bo’s help, they pulled off the stranger’s battered clothes. They were soaked through with blood and melted snow and cut in so many places that eventually Orna gave up on saving them and picked up a knife. Then they built up a fire and started water boiling. The first pot went to clean him. He bled afresh when they washed away the congealed blood and dirt that covered much of his skin. Orna followed Bo’s cloth with clean bandages. Only a few of the cuts seemed deep enough to merit stitches. There was, too, the issue of how close together they were. Pulling the skin closed over one opened others wider and spilled more of his blood onto the floor of the tent.

“Does this feel strange to you?” Bo asked, rubbing his fingers together.

“Strange how?”

“Strange… I don’t know.” He held his fingers up to the lamplight where the blood on them glistened purple-red. “I don’t know Tiefling blood.”

“Neither do I. Worry about that later. Help me get his back.”

They wrapped him in blankets once they finished and tucked skins full from the second pot of hot water all around him. Soon, the man began to shiver violently. Orna sat up with him, washing the last of the blood from his hair. Sometime in the night, the shivering stopped. His color remained hard to judge, but he seemed pale, and there were dark, heavy circles under both eyes. Gently, Orna shook his shoulder. When he did not wake, she did it again, harder.

The man’s eyes snapped open. They were crimson, without a trace of sclera, pupil, or iris. Orna jerked backwards on instinct, and then brought up a smile. It did not seem to register with him.

“Hello?” She tried

The man stared blankly past her shoulder for a moment. Then his eyes drifted shut again.

“...Shit.”

 

Bo came and fetched her too early the next morning. Their stranger had fresh water bottles, but he was shivering again. When she got closer, she realized the sound was not keening, but a mixture of Common and Infernal, the words running into each other until they were incomprehensible.

“We can’t wake him.”

Orna dropped to her knees beside the mess of blankets and felt the stranger’s forehead. Tieflings were warmer than humans, she knew, but that had to be too warm even for them.

“I need my medicine kit.” She called, stripping back the blankets so she could replace them with ones that had not been soaked through with sweat. “And someone to help me with him.”

“We’re setting up today.”

“The new girl, then. The singer.” She pressed a hand to the stranger’s chest. “This is infection, not disease. She can help me until the show starts.”

 

The singer, Toya, was too small and too young to help pull up the great tent. She was too young to perform, in Orna’s opinion, but arguing with Gustav rarely went how she wanted. Besides, she would not advocate for throwing a girl out into the cold. Even if her first performance was an abject failure. The girl left the ring without managing an audible note, and Desmond had needed to cover for her with his violin. She was helpful here, though, coaxing spoonfuls of water and broth down the stranger’s throat. Toya stayed next to him when she was done, running her fingers along the ridges of his horns. Orna sat in the corner, darning her stockings and keeping an eye on a pot of tea she hoped would bring the stranger’s fever down. She had tracked someone down in the city who knew a thing or two about Tieflings. The old bat had refused to come down in person, but the information she had gotten was better than nothing.

Besides, she could recognize a seizure on almost anyone.

Orna pushed Toya out of the way of the stranger’s horns. As quickly as she could, she turned him onto his side, steadied his head, and locked his arms and legs.

“What are you doing?” Toya asked, barely more audible than she had been in the ring.

She did not look up as she checked to make sure the stranger’s mouth would clear if and when he vomited up everything they had just gotten into him. “I am keeping him from hurting himself.”

The seizure ended quickly, at least-- in under a minute. Blood trickled from his mouth and the corners of his eyes. When Orna checked his tongue, she found no sign that he had bitten it. He had all his teeth and no sign of cuts or bite marks inside his mouth, but he was bleeding sluggishly from his gums.

“Give me the antitoxin. It’s in a green glass bottle.”

Toya handed it over. Orna poured it down his throat.

 

The fever broke three days later. The stranger blinked open crimson eyes, brushed sweat-darkened, purple hair out of his face, and slowly pushed himself upright. Immediately, he lay back down, a hand over his eyes.

“We were starting to worry you wouldn’t wake up.” Toya rasped.

He cracked an eye open again.

“You’ve been in and out for a couple days. I was helping Orna. She’ll be in soon. She’s nice.”

The stranger cleared his throat.

“Oh! I should get you water.”

She scrambled to her feet. There were a wooden cup and a water skin by the mouth of the tent, where the snow could keep it cold. She filled the cup, and then carried it back to the bedroll. He sat up more slowly this time and freed a hand. It shook too badly to hold the cup, so Toya steadied it for him while he drank. He gave her a small smile when he was done. Then he pointed at his bandaged chest.

“That was Orna. And Bo. They had me leave while they changed the bandages.”

He nodded slowly and then pointed more emphatically.

“Your clothes?”

He nodded again.

“Your clothes were ruined. Something cut them up. We’ll find you new ones since we cut them up… more.”

That got her a soft snort. He lay back down, started to fold one arm behind his head, and then thought better of it. Toya shuffled over and fluffed up the worn pillow under his head.

“Can you talk?” She asked.

The stranger shrugged.

 

He wrote his name down for them a few days later.

“What does it mean?” Toya asked.

They were sitting near one of the cookfires, both bundled up. Gustav had moved her performance earlier in the show, so it would not matter so much when she could not quite sing the way she had when they’d found her singing for her supper. Molly flexed his hands, and then shifted on his crate. His hands cast shadows on the wall of the big tent-- first a ship, and then a bird flying and wheeling against the well-worn stripes. Toya clapped.

“We should get you to do something. So you can stay.”

He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. The cuts had healed, but many of them were likely to scar.

 

Sometimes, things happened to the circus. People came who did not mean them well, and they had to push back, pick up, and run. No one expected Mollymauk to do more than get Toya and her things onto a wagon. But once she was safe, he picked up a sword in each hand, turned, and ran into the fray. He swung through the crowd, delivering blows with the flats of the blades until someone stabbed a pitchfork into Bo’s side and turned, screaming about monsters and devils. Mollymauk’s sword bit into his collarbone, and then deep into the screaming man’s thigh. It left a bloom of ice crystals in its wake.

Bo grabbed him by the back of the shirt before the fight could turn deadly. Orna had time to lash someone across the face with one of her fans before they made it to the carts. Molly jumped up onto the back with them and kept his blades ready. The circus traveled away and left the angry crowd behind. When it was done, Molly put the swords down and flopped backwards onto the various sacks of their belongings. A moment later, Toya handed him a piece of bandage from Orna’s medical kit. The four of them rode in silence until there was nothing in sight but empty fields. Then Bo nudged the hilt of one sword with his foot.

“Think we could teach him to juggle?” He asked.

Orna rammed her elbow into his side.

 

Mollymauk started learning with short, wooden staves. When he could consistently grab them out of the air by the right end, he switched to the scimitars. His hands collected more scars, and he wore bandages on his arms and chest more often than not. He learned quickly. The swords flipped from hand to hand, over his head and behind his back. Mollymauk could not manage their real jugglers’ fanciest tricks, but he joined the parade leaning into the tent regardless, walking near Toya to bolster her, but far away enough that he would not hit her with a dropped sword.

His true talent, though, lay in manipulating cards.

“Shame he won’t talk,” Desmond commented, out of earshot. “We’ve needed a new fortune teller ever since Anya left.” Then he sighed. “It’s fine. He’s getting along with everyone, he’s helpful…”

“Toya likes him,” Gustav commented.

 

The two had become inseparable. One night found them sitting by a campfire. Molly demonstrated various shadow puppets-- birds and rabbits. A great stag that bellowed at the moon. A man who became a wolf. A demon. A swan. When he finished, he gestured to Toya expectantly. She hesitated a moment before straightening her back, opening her mouth, and singing. It was the same song she always sang in her performances, the one she sang when she was practicing in her tent. But this time, it came out as it had when she was singing for coin on the street. Molly could see the angels the song described as clearly as Toya had seen the shadows on the canvas wall. He closed his eyes and went still. When the song finished, Toya saw tears running down his cheeks. Mollymauk quickly swept them away with the back of one scarred hand. Then he raised both and clapped.

She sang more often after that, and more publicly. People stopped what they were doing to listen, to watch. When she managed the same performance three times in a row, Gustav rearranged the show again. She and Kaurri now followed the Orna in their tale of rebirth and triumph over darkness.

“Heaven and Hell.” He explained. In the face of Molly’s arched brow, he amended. “The Abyss.”

Desmond took hold of Molly’s jaw. “Stop moving, or I’ll make a mess of your bird.”

That got him an expansive eyeroll. Mollymauk folded his hands behind his head and lay back. He barely twitched as Desmond’s needle repeatedly broke the skin of his cheek.

 

Gustav and Desmond had given Toya a new dress, and Orna had worked little gold threads into her braids. She practically skipped as she followed at Mollymauk’s new coattails as he walked through the camp. For the first hour, a smile played at his mouth, dimpling the freshly healed peacock. After that, he kept his expression as neutral as he could.

The tenth time in a row Toya started on her song, Molly gave up and dropped his head into his hands.

“Do you know any others?”

Toya came to an abrupt halt. The voice was unfamiliar, rough from disuse, with a lilting, tripping accent. She blinked a few times and then shrugged.

“Not really… I mean, I do, but my mother taught me that one. I don’t know any I like as much.”

“Huh.” He was silent for a while. “I’m not ready to sing just yet.”

“Well, that’s okay.” Toya sat down next to him and took one of his hands in hers. “Can I tell Orna?”

He shook his head. “Let me. Later.”

 

“Desmond said I should really be coming to you if I want more ink.”

Orna turned, about to tell whatever stranger had wandered into camp to get lost. Then her mouth dropped open. “Molly? You _shithead_ . You start talking, and the first thing you say to me is _that_?”

Mollymauk shrugged, his mouth quirking into a sharp grin, made sharper still by the flash of his canines. “You can’t fault me for a few dramatics, can you?”

“Yes I can. Get in here and sit down.” Shaking her head, she fetched out her needles and inks. “What do you want?”

“I was thinking about a serpent to start. More later. And…” he raised his hands to his curling horns. “I was thinking we could do something with these.”

Orna considered for a moment, mouth pursed. Then she shrugged. “Sit down. I’ll see what I can do.”

 

A year later, another stranger stumbled into their company. She was bleeding, bruised, and angry. She quieted when Toya sang, but remained curled in on herself. Her shoulders hunched toward her ears. Molly approached slowly, a skin of water in one hand. He sat down out of the stranger’s reach and then held it out to her.

“The name’s Mollymauk. Molly to my friends. What’s yours?”

**Author's Note:**

> When will Taliesin stop coming for my life with his characters?????
> 
> Title from "Mariner's Song" by Elizaveta.
> 
> On Tumblr!  
> Fic only: ask-ladyofrosefire.tumblr.com  
> General blog: ladyofrosefire.tumblr.com


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